Black Swan, poster

(click to supersize)

Last night’s debut of the trailer for Black Swan made quite a splash. Good to see there’s an eager audience for stylish pyscho-thrillers and directors who can explore internal horrors without a workshop of bloody power tools. Compared to the baroque trailer this snowy poster has an ethereal simplicity. It’s creepiness comes from the most basic of photographic tricks — soft focus makes the tiara intangible with a motionless blur, and the radically shallow depth of field has Portman’s eyes, nose and mouth floating above her face in an eerie detachment that makes the rest of her presence dissolve in the fog of the background plane.

oh, and there’s something rather alarming about those eyes.

Director’s do some of their most interesting work in movies where characters lose their grip on identity. Altman’s Images and 3 Women. Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. Fincher’s Fight Club. Weir’s The Truman Show. Nolan’s Memento. Bergman’s Persona. Cronenberg’s … well, just about every Cronenberg movie is about shifting layers of identity. Ripe territory, yeah? What are some of your favorites on the same theme?

Full-size poster after the cut.